LGBTQIA+ ac­tivist Ja­son Jones has vowed to con­tin­ue to seek equal­i­ty for mem­bers of his com­mu­ni­ty while still await­ing the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion of his land­mark law­suit over this coun­try’s bug­gery and se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy laws.

Jones made the state­ment as he spoke to Guardian Me­dia at Wood­ford Square in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, on the eve of the Court of Ap­peal hear­ing sub­mis­sions on the le­gal vic­to­ry he scored in the case in 2018.

Jones said, “I am not go­ing to wait on de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion to chase things like mar­riage equal­i­ty.”

He stat­ed that civ­il part­ner­ships for mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty were need­ed as cur­rent­ly there is no le­gal pro­tec­tion af­ford­ed to same-sex cou­ples.

“For ex­am­ple, if a cou­ple has been to­geth­er for 30 years and one gets hos­pi­talised the oth­er can­not even vis­it them. They get cut off of their part­ner’s will,” Jones said.

He said there were 27 dif­fer­ent pieces of leg­is­la­tion which are dis­crim­i­na­to­ry to mem­bers of the LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty as he specif­i­cal­ly cit­ed the Im­mi­gra­tion Act and leg­is­la­tion deal­ing with the op­er­a­tions of ho­tels and cin­e­mas.

“These things are ar­cha­ic and are hold­ing back democ­ra­cy and the free­doms of LGBT cit­i­zens. I am chas­ing it all,” Jones said.

He added he had al­ready host­ed sem­i­nars and con­fer­ences to get feed­back from mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty and would be seek­ing fund­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom, where he re­sides, to pur­sue ac­tion.

Stat­ing that the on­go­ing case cost him ap­prox­i­mate­ly £1 mil­lion (TT$8 mil­lion) to pur­sue thus far, Jones said, “I raised all this over­seas. We could not af­ford to do it here.”

Asked about his feel­ings on the ap­peal, Jones ex­pressed con­fi­dence that it would be up­held by the Court of Ap­peal and even­tu­al­ly the UK-based Privy Coun­cil.

“I am qui­et­ly op­ti­mistic that the ap­peal court judges would up­hold Jus­tice Ram­per­sad’s de­ci­sion so the next step would be the Privy Coun­cil. That is go­ing to take three to five years,” he said.

Jones not­ed that his case had been con­sid­ered by courts in In­dia, An­tigua, Bar­ba­dos and St Kitts and Nevis in sim­i­lar suc­cess­ful lit­i­ga­tion over sim­i­lar ho­mo­pho­bic laws in those coun­tries.

He point­ed out that there are pend­ing cas­es be­fore the courts in Grena­da and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

“These past five years have been in­cred­i­bly pow­er­ful be­cause it shows that the work I have been do­ing has had a domi­no ef­fect across the globe and that has al­ways been a dream of mine,” he said.

He al­so high­light­ed that with­in months of his le­gal vic­to­ry, the lo­cal LGBTQIA+ com­mu­ni­ty host­ed its first pub­lic Pride Pa­rade.

“I think it has gal­vanised the com­mu­ni­ty in terms of un­der­stand­ing how to em­brace their rights and how to be proud Trinida­di­ans while fight­ing for our equal­i­ty,” Jones said.

“As our an­them says every creed and race finds an equal place. That is ex­act­ly what I am do­ing. All I am do­ing is find­ing my equal place in the coun­try of my birth,” he added.

In 2017, Jones chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of sec­tions 13 and 16 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, which crim­i­nalised bug­gery and se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy even be­tween con­sent­ing adults.

Jones claimed that the long-stand­ing leg­is­la­tion con­tra­vened his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pri­va­cy and free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion and was in di­rect con­tra­dic­tion to this coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights oblig­a­tions.

In his 58-page judg­ment de­liv­ered in April 2018, Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad agreed that the leg­is­la­tion con­tra­vened Jones’ rights to pri­va­cy and fam­i­ly life.

Al­though he ac­knowl­edged claims from State at­tor­neys that the leg­is­la­tion has nev­er been en­forced against con­sent­ing adults, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said that did not mit­i­gate the im­pact on Jones and oth­er ho­mo­sex­u­als, who lived in fear of be­ing brand­ed crim­i­nals based on their ex­pres­sion of love and af­fec­tion.

He sug­gest­ed by al­low­ing it to re­main a valid law, Par­lia­ment helped to cul­ti­vate so­ci­ety’s ho­mo­pho­bic views on the is­sue.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad did not im­me­di­ate­ly strike down the leg­is­la­tion as it would have meant that non-con­sen­su­al anal in­ter­course (anal rape) would be le­gal.

In­stead, he lat­er mod­i­fied the leg­is­la­tion to in­tro­duce an el­e­ment of con­sent.

Jones is rep­re­sent­ed by Rishi Dass, SC, and An­to­nio Em­manuel, while Fyard Ho­sein, SC, is lead­ing the State’s le­gal team.